Captured: Claimed Book 3

by M James

  “Now, Poppy! And make sure you sleep on the floor, like the fucking animal that you are. I’m going to come and check, so don’t even think about disobeying me. Curl up at the foot of her bed, on the floor like a dog, since you want to act like a goddamn bitch.”

  Dena is sobbing in his arms, and I can’t remember the last time I was so angry; angry and humiliated, my entire body flushed and hot, and my face and scalp burning from the slaps and pulled hair and nails in my cheek, my arms bruised from all the grabbing and fighting. I feel completely broken, embarrassed beyond belief. I wrap my arms around myself, pushing myself to my feet as I bite back the offensive words I want to spit out at him; if you don’t want me, if I’m so horrible, why don’t you just let me go? Just fucking marry Dena since she wants this, since she wants you. Coddle her and spoil her, and she’ll love it, just fucking let me leave.

  But he won’t do that, and it does no good to say anything about it. I know that now.

  “Oh, Poppy?” Vincent’s voice calls out as I turn to walk out of the room, and I look back at him, struggling not to let my anger and humiliation show on my face.

  He holds up the case that contains my birth control pills, the last month I have since I need to go and pick up a refill.

  It’s empty.

  “I had Andrea flush these this morning,” he says casually. “The wedding is being moved up. You’re going to spend the day with Dena and Erin and my mother tomorrow, looking for your dress and preparing for it. After all, my father’s health is still poor, and I’m worried he might not live to see me get married. What a shame that would be.”

  I stare at him in mute horror. “What—what does that have to do with my birth control?” But I already know the answer.

  “I told you that you’d be getting pregnant as soon as possible, after the wedding. You need something to keep you busy, Poppy, something to remind you of your place in this house as my wife and the mother of my children.” He smiles coldly at me. “You’re going to take my cock every night after our wedding, if that’s what it takes, until you’re pregnant. And then I’ll have Rose here to keep me happy in the meantime.” He shudders, still holding her. “There’s nothing attractive about a fat pregnant woman. But Rose will be happy to take your place, and—” he trails off. “Well, we’ll talk about that another time.”

  Cold horror sweeps over me at the thought of not only being trapped in a marriage with Vincent, but pregnant with his baby. I try desperately to think of a way to avoid this new hell, to get out of it. Still, he’s already holding the empty case, my pills are long gone, and I know better than to think I’ll be able to get new ones without his knowing about it. My only hope for sneaking it, Dena or Erin, is long since gone.

  I’m completely alone. There’s no one who can help me.

  “I’m ready for a child,” Vincent says firmly. “We’ll be married within the next two weeks, and I need an heir. So you’ll provide me with a son, and if you don’t get it right the first time, I’ll keep you pregnant until you do.”

  I try to think of an excuse, anything. I’m still not feeling well. I just got back into shape. Do you really want me to gain weight? I’m too young. I want to go back to school. I’m not ready. I pick through each of them, trying to think what might hold weight with him.

  But I know there’s nothing. I had never really thought about having children before he told me that he wanted them in Italy, but that doesn’t matter. There had always been a vague idea in the back of my mind that I might, one day, but there had always been so many things in front of it that I’d never really examined whether I truly wanted them or not. There had been finding a place to live and a job and then thinking about school, a career, financial stability. And then, of course, falling in love, getting married…so many steps before the idea of a child even could come into existence. Vincent and I had never talked about it until Italy, either, and even with the financial stability that had come with him, and even though our marriage was looming on the horizon, I had figured that I had years to decide if I wanted them or not before he’d said that. Vincent wasn’t the paternal type, and with his womanizing and business deals, I’d thought I had time. Even after he’d said in Italy that he planned for us to start trying after the wedding, I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, hoping I could talk him out of it.

  But of course, he’s going to force the issue. Of course, he’s going to insist on a child, not because he wants to be a father, but because he wants someone to hand over his accomplishments to, eventually, someone to be in awe of him. He wants to carbon copy himself because there’s nothing he loves more. And of course, he expects me to carry and have this child, mother it, and do the work of raising it while he fucks any hot young thing he can convince to get into bed with him in the meantime.

  While he fucks my former friend right under my nose, maybe even right next to me.

  He’s going to trap me more completely than ever, because once I have his child, I know for a fact that I will never, ever get away from him.

  The bitterness washes over me all over again, mixed with fear. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know if I ever would have been, even with someone I loved. And I don’t love Vincent anymore.

  That’s the one thing I’m absolutely certain of.

  I walk out of the room in a daze, heading down the hall towards Dena’s room. It’s right next to Sonya and Zach’s, I realize, and a sick feeling washes over me because I don’t want to hear them together. I don’t want him to see me like this, in my torn lingerie, my lip bleeding, my arms bruised, all of me a complete disaster.

  But, to my fucking horror, he’s coming down the hall in the opposite direction, and the moment he sees me, he speeds up, rushing towards me with widened eyes.

  I have a moment, somewhere in between all the pain and fear and anger and embarrassment, of pure happiness, because Zach is running towards me again, his expression worried for me, his entire being focused on me, and for a brief second, I can forget about everything that just happened and lose myself in that.

  And then he skids to a stop, far enough away to not be inappropriate. My heart drops again as I remember where I am, and who I am to him now, and who he can never be to me again.

  “What the fuck, Rain?” Zach says, his voice low as he looks around the hallway. “You look like you got into a fight.”

  “I did,” I say, my voice clipped.

  “Was it Vincent?” Zach’s voice drops another octave, and I see his shoulders tense, that muscle in his jaw leap.

  What if it was? I want to cry out. What if I told you Vincent hurt me? What if I told you that it wasn’t him tonight, but it’s been him on other nights, hurting me, grabbing me, forcing me to have sex with him that I didn’t want? What if I told you about the lying and the cheating and what he just tried to make me do and what he did make me do? What would you do about it Zach, would you help me? Would you do any fucking thing at all?

  I don’t say any of that. “It wasn’t him. It was Dena,” I mumble instead. “It’s fine. I’m going to shower.” I’m not, but it’s as good an excuse as any.

  “In her room?” Zach looks confused. He looks back down the hall towards the open door of our suite and then back at me. I can see him trying to piece it all together.

  I look at Zach, and I know he can see the tear tracks outlined down my face, black mascara all down my cheeks, and when his eyes meet mine, for just a moment, the careful blankness that he always wears like armor slips away. I see the sadness in his gaze too.

  Strangely, that gives me hope. Because if he’s not happy—maybe he’ll do something. Maybe something could change.

  Don’t be an idiot.

  “I’m in hell,” I tell him flatly, my voice wavering as I reach out to open the door to Dena’s room. “And there’s no way out.”

  Before I can step forward, his hand shoots out, covering mine on the door handle, and he looks down at me, his bright blue eyes awash with the same misery that’s in mine.

/>   “Rain.” He says my name softly, but it feels like it pierces right through me, my whole chest aching and hollow at the sound of him saying it like that, after all these years, after so long.

  “Zach.” I can’t bring myself to use his fake name. I look up into his eyes, and I want to tumble into them, fall and keep falling, to go up on my tiptoes and kiss him with my bruised and bleeding mouth, and let him heal my bruised and bleeding heart.

  I want to go back, and I know we can’t. Still, just the warm pressure of his hand over mine makes me want to pretend just for a minute, to lose myself in something that would feel so good, when everything else around me feels so bad.

  “No Rain,” he whispers. “We can’t, it’s—” But his hand doesn’t leave mine. It lingers, warm and heavy, and I wonder if he’s worried about getting caught because right now I’m not. What else can happen to me? What can Vincent do besides throw me out? I can’t quite bring myself to care anymore, even with everything that would come crashing down if he did.

  “Zach.” I look up at him, sniffing back tears. “Zach, I miss you—”

  His hand jerks back, and I can see the ripple that goes through his body, the struggle as he forces himself to back off, to stop touching me, to halt all of this in its tracks before it can go any further.

  “My name is Chase,” he says, but there’s no sharpness to it this time, no cutting edge. He just backs away, shaking his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Rain.”

  And then he disappears into the room next door, leaving me there in the hall.

  I can’t risk disobeying Vincent again, so I curl up into a ball on the floor at the foot of Dena’s bed, dragging an extra pillow and a throw blanket off of it to cover myself with. I huddle as tightly as I can, crying, feeling my heart crack and shatter even though I’d thought there was nothing left to break.

  “I want you,” I whisper it to the empty room, to Zach, really, but he’s not here to hear it. “I miss you, I want you, I love you—” the words are hardly even words, broken up by my sobs, until I’ve cried myself half to sleep on the thick carpet of the floor.

  I’m awoken at some point, I don’t know how long after I fall into a miserable half-sleep, by the sound of Vincent’s heavy footfalls. “Rose is asleep, finally, after what you did to her,” he growls. “You owe me a fucking nut!”

  He rolls me onto his back, and I realize he’s in pajama pants and nothing else, pants that he yanks down to his hips as he tears the pink thong off of me, the strings that hold it on biting into my hips as he rips it away. I cry out, pushing at his chest, but he covers my mouth with his hand, forcing my thighs apart and his rock-hard erection into me as he shoves deep and fast, plunging into me so hard that it hurts.

  My cries are muffled by his hand, and I hope that if Zach hears me that he knows they’re cries of pain and not pleasure, and then at the same time, I hope he can’t hear them at all, because after seeing that look in his eyes I don’t know if I want him to know anymore how much pain I’m in, how much Vincent has hurt me, how much he’s still hurting me.

  I don’t want Zach to be hurt by all of this, too.

  It goes on for what feels like forever. I go limp under the onslaught until Vincent finally comes inside of me in a hot rush, and I feel it trickling down my thighs, hot and sticky as he pulls out.

  “Don’t you fucking get up until the morning,” he hisses. “I don’t care if you have to pee, I don’t care if you need to throw up, I don’t care what happens. You keep my cum inside of you, Poppy, and be grateful that I came and fucked you tonight instead of one of my other flowers. You start trying to get pregnant tonight.”

  And then he leaves me there, my lip bleeding all over again from his hand smashed roughly against the split, his cum wet on my thighs, and my whole body aching with pain.

  When the door slams, I start to cry all over again, and this time, I don’t fall asleep.

  ---

  I look like hell the next morning. I must have slept at some point because I’m awoken by Andrea’s toe digging into my shoulder, nudging me awake none too gently as she looks down at me with plain disgust.

  “Mr. Jamison has already left for the day. He said to tell you that you can go back to your room to shower. But get out of this one. The maids need to start cleaning for the day.”

  I get to my feet slowly, feeling every muscle stiff and sore from the fight and then sleeping on the floor. My lip is swollen and throbbing, my cheek hurts from the slap and Dena’s nails, and my arms throb from the bruises. I haven’t been in this much physical pain in a long time, but it feels like nothing compared to the pain in my chest, my shattered heart making me feel as if I’m bleeding out all over.

  I wrap the throw blanket around myself, not wanting to walk down the hall and run into anyone in my torn lingerie and missing panties, and stumble down to the master suite. I’m terrified that Dena will still be in my bed when I walk in, but it’s empty, neatly made already.

  As I walk into the bathroom, dropping the throw blanket and yanking off the remainder of the lingerie as quickly as I can, and shoving it into the trash can, everything hits me all over again. The awful dinner, the forced near-threesome, the fight, Vincent’s demands for a baby, and him revealing the empty birth control case. Him telling me that Andrea flushed my pills, making her waking me up this morning on the floor in Dena’s room even more humiliating than before. I sink onto the edge of the tub, my mind racing.

  I could get more pills, I have a prescription, but he would know if I went to the doctor. I have no doubt that he checks everything, even insurance records for visits and prescription refills.

  The full weight of my situation hits me all over again. I can’t refuse him sex. I can’t get my pills refilled. I can’t go to school or make choices about when I want to get pregnant, or even if I do at all.

  I want to escape more than ever, but it’s even more hopeless than before. I can’t leave Erin. I have no money, and even if I could get out of the house with some of my jewelry and pawn it, the guilt of leaving my sister behind in Vincent’s hands would eat me alive. He hasn’t kidnapped her. There’s nothing the cops could do to help me. And even if I tried to press charges on him for abuse and rape, I know better than that. He’s too wealthy, too powerful. No one is going to take me seriously, and no one is going to do anything to Vincent.

  Thinking about bringing a child into this makes me want to vomit. No child deserves to be born into this screwed-up situation. I think of the kind of daughter I would raise under these circumstances, seeing our marriage—or worse, the kind of son. Vincent would raise a son to be exactly like him; the idea of that is horrifying.

  But I have no way out. Even if Erin would somehow leave with me, Vincent has made it all but impossible. The money I once had saved up is entirely under his control now, locked down in accounts that I can’t access. I get an allowance in a joint account monthly, but it’s not much, not enough to get me far enough away and set up in a new place until I can find a job. And what if he came after me? Vincent’s pride would never let me leave without a fight.

  Leaving Vincent is a fantasy and an impossible one at that.

  I think of Zach last night, his hand over mine, the look in his gorgeous blue eyes. He has some idea of what’s happening to me. If not before last night, then definitely now. He used to run with some rough people, I remember them clearly, and I don’t know what he’s been doing since then, but he might still know people who could help me. But even as the thought springs into my head, I know that’s not my way out either.

  Zach is with Sonya, working for Vincent, and there’s no real way for me to know how much I can trust him. I don’t think he likes Vincent or even really wants to report to him. Still, he’s here for some reason that I haven’t been able to figure out yet, something that requires him to use a fake name and a false identity. Whatever that is, it’s more important than me, or he wouldn’t keep pushing me to use that fake name. He wouldn’t withdraw the moment there’s the tini
est hint of closeness between us. It’s not just Vincent’s retaliation if we were caught that scares him off from getting even a little close to me or the fact that he’s screwing Sonya. There’s something else going on.

  He always said he would protect me no matter what, but I can’t rely on that anymore. And Zach’s way of “protecting” me wasn’t always what I wanted, even when we were teenagers. Suppose I opened up to him, told him everything and begged him for help. In that case, he might say that I’m the most “protected” here, where I have a home, money, and a man who might not love me, but who at least keeps me sheltered and fed and generally safe, and my family cared for. He might think I’m better off here than out on my own, running away from Vincent. He might tell, and just the thought of what Vincent would do then makes my stomach cramp painfully with a terrified nausea that makes me almost rush to the toilet to throw up.

  Once, I would have believed wholeheartedly that he would help me no matter what. But I don’t know him anymore, not the way I once did. I don’t know how much of him is still the boy that I loved, that I gave myself wholly to, body and heart and soul. And this is too dangerous to risk. Even if he would help me, even if his promise to protect me is as pure and genuine as it once was—this is dangerous. Vincent is dangerous. And I couldn’t bear it if Zach was hurt because of me.

  I need to stop trying to think of how to escape, and start figuring out how to survive.

  Because there is no way out. Not one that I can see.

  18

  Zach

  When I wake up, Sonya is already gone. She let me back into her bed after that one night, or ordered me back, more like. I would have been fine staying in the guest room, but I’d underestimated how hot she is for me, pissed off and pregnant or not. She told me that she’d made the appointment for the abortion, just before yanking my boxers down and sucking me to a full erection and then riding me bare. When I’d protested, she’d laughed and said that she couldn’t get pregnant twice, so we might as well enjoy it while we didn’t need a condom.